here to talk about this with us, jared bernstein who served as vice president biden's chief economist and now senior fellow the center of budget and policy orders. msnbc contributor. we thank you so much for coming on the show. mr. bernstein, i want to put up a graphic in terms of the literal impact going over the fiscal cliff. if you make $20,000 you will see tax hike of $412. if you are middle $, 40,000 to $65,000, average tax hike of fearly nearly $2,000 which is significant. is this being lost on the policymakers now? >> i think it is. i mean -- if you -- were really concerned about how middle income people are doing and howing the unemployed are doing, how the average person who depends on their pay paycheck, not their stock portfolio is doing, you quickly resolve these cliff issues so the tax rates don't revert to get you the results you just showed. very quickly extend unemployment. i mean, i thought the point that someone made earlier in the reporting was critical. there are millions, couple million, actually, of unemployed people who have been on the rolls already. we know th